Document 2586

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Vol . 20, No .
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Present and Future oJlndoorAirQualit,v, CJ Bieva,
Y Courtois, and M Govaerts (eds) . Elsevier, New
York, pp . 207-213 .
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Wells AJ (1988) . An estimate of adult mortality in
the United States from passive smoking . Environ .
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WhichelowMJ,GoldingJF,andTreasurcFP(1988) .
Comparison of some dietary habits of smokers and
non-smokers . Br. J. Addict . 83 : 295-304 .
White J and Froeb H (1980) . Small-airways dysfunction in nonsmokers chronically exposed to tobacco smoke . N. Engl. J. Med . 302(13) : 720-723 .
Wiedemann HP, Mahler DA, Loke J, Virgulto JA,
Snyder P, and Matthay RA (1986) . Acute effects of
passive smoking on lung function and airway reactivity in asthmatic subjects . Chest 89(2) : 180-184 .
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150 . Wynder EL (1987) . Workshop on guidelines to the
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151 . Wynder EL, Herbert JR, and Kabat GC (1987) . Association of dietary fat and lung cancer, J . Natl.
Cancer Inst. 19(4) : 631-637 .
152 . Yusuf S (1987) . Obtaining medically meaningful
answers from an overview of randomized clinical
trials . Stat . Med. 6 : 281-286 .
153 . Yusuf S, Peto SR . Lewis J, Collins R, and Sleight P
(1985) . Beta blockade during and after myocardial
infarction : An overview of the randomized trials .
Prog. Cardiovasc. Dis. 27 : 335-371 .
154. Zahm SH, Brownson RC, Chang JC, and Davis JR
(1989) . Study of lung cancer histologic types, occupation, and smoMng in Missouri . Am . J. lnd. Med.
15 :565-578 .
155 . Ziegler RG, Mason TJ, Stemhagen A, Hoover R,
Schoenberg JB, Gridley G, Virgo PW, Altman R,
and Fraumeni JF, Jr. (1984). Dietary carotene and
vitamin A and risk of lung cancer among white men
in New Jersey . J. Narl . Cancer lnst . 73(6): 14291435 .
CRITIQUE
I
Justice, Science, and the "Bad Guys"
When accused of a new offense, does someone
regarded as a"bad guy" have the right to due process
and a fair trial? If such a right is inherent in the legal
systems of civilized society, is it also a pan ofjustice
in the "courts" of scientific evaluation? I ask these
questions because, in private conversation, I recently heard an authoritative leader in the world of
public health epidemiology make the following
statement : "Yes, it's rotten science, but it's in a
worthy cause. It will help us get rid of cigarettes and
become a smoke-free society ."
The statement, of course, referred to the data and
evaluations assembled in the past few years for accusations about what is formally called environmental tobacco smoke and informally designated as
passive smoking. According to the accusations, this
type of exposure causes at least 2 of the prime evils
hitherto attributed to direct smoking : lung cancer
and cardiovascular disease . In fact, several of the
recent cardiovascular studies found risks that were
even higher for passive smokers than for direct
smokers . (The authors tactfully refrained, however,
from stating the implicit conclusion that people who
cannot avoid passive exposure should lower their
risk by beginning to smoke directly .)
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A new part of the current indictment is the claim
that passive smoking is responsible for respiratory
and otologic difficulties in children . Because young
children so rarely engage in direct smoking, pediatricians have hitherto had little participation in the
research industry devoted to studying cigarettes .
Now, with open hunting season declared on the effects of passive smoking in children, a fertile new
opportunity has arisen for selfless public service,
fame, grants, a,nd publications .
Nevertheless, if the science is as "rotten" as the
public health authority admitted, does the endreally
justify the means? If objectivity, precautions against
bias, and careful operating guidelines are essential
for a "bad guy" to get fair treatment in a court of
law, should those principles be abandoned or abolished when the "bad guy" is in a court of science?
A peripheral inspection, without any in-depth appraisals, of the current accusations about passive
smoking would suggest that many scientific principles have vanished. I shall cite 3 overt examples :
1) Many of the pediatric researchers seem unaware of the frequent disparity between symptoms
and objective evidence of ailments whenever people
are passively exposed to a "bad guy ." Perhaps the
most striking demonstration of this phenomenon
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SMITH ET AL Tox cuLoGtC PATt-tot .ocY
occurred in a classic and scientifically superb epidemiologic field investigation on "Subjective Fears
and Objective Data ." In that landmark study, Spitzer ci al (4) showed the excessive frequency with
which residents of a Canadian community, exposed
to "sour gas" fumes from a nearby mine, complained of diverse ocular, respiratory, neurologic,
and other symptoms for which no objective pathology could be found . In an analogous control
community elsewhere, where residents were exposed to the same degree of emissions but where
their evils had not been publicized, the prevalence
of analogous symptoms was substantially lower.
Nevertheless, no attention seems to have been given
to this phenomenon when symptoms were evaluated for children exposed to the presumptive evil
of passive smoking .
2) In meta-analyses of passive smoking studies,
as recently pointed out by Fleiss and Gross (2), the
investigators have complied with almost none of
the scientific guidelines established for this type of
research . While agglomerating masses of data obtained without randomized trials, the meta-analysts
have also given little or no attention to the frequently stated guideline that randomization is a sine
qua non for the scientific credibility of a meta-analysis .
3) A fundamental rule in criteria for causality is
that the evidence from different studies consistently
goes in the same direction . This consistency in different investig :tions of direct smoking was one of
the key suppe c in the Surgeon General's Committee's origi:J decision (5) to label cigarettes as a
"bad guy ." In _e investigations of passive smoking,
however, the s-:ous studies are contradictory, some
going in posi=• : e directions and others not . The inconvenient ~= of the evidence to comply with
a prime requ•_= of scientific reasoning for causality,
however, has = : : inhibited the causal accusations.
The "prosec= :=" has simply ignored the inconvenient rcsu= _d emphasized those that are (in a
memorable t_=, 'helpful ."
Aside fror -:roblems of getting a fair trial in
a court of las . xcs a "bad guy" also have the right
to get a lawy- _ 1vs principle is also a traditional
bulwark in ss2--s ofjustice, what kind of "lawyer"
will be av3 scientific courts if the act of
defending a~-rsy" is almost universally regarded as depra. ~_ tzd immoral? For example, in the
current fervcc :i anti-smoking evangelism, what
young scientrc =auld want to risk their careers and
what older s :r--s would want to risk their reputations by a.rv >sything that might be construed
as support f¢ 1'bad guys" of the tobacco industry? What go• -cntal agency would fund research
in which th : s-'^ished "accepted" anti-smoking
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doctrines were threatened by a study proposed by
someone-an obviously deranged skeptic-who
wanted to do an unbiased, objective investigation?
The governmental agencies that fund scientific
research were once expected to be above the battle,
uncommitted, and devoted to seeking truth, however it might be found . For diverse political, social,
and fiscal reasons, however, those agencies have often in recent years become mechanisms of advocacy
rather than scholarship, pursuing goals of policy
rather than science .
Any organization that is under attack-a governmental agency, a foundation, a university, a political
group, even a profit-making industry-is always given the right to defend itself by getting a "lawyer,"
who is usually called a°consultant ." This right is
apparently also denied to the tobacco "bad guys ."
Like any other group under attack, the "bad guys"
would like to get a respectable, competent consultant-in this instance, an acadcmic or federal investigator of impeccable credcntials, who has never
been tainted by anything other than federal grants,
and who is preferably so disinterested as to believe
perhaps that Philip Morris signed the Declaration
of Independence and that R .J . Reynolds manufactures aluminum . In the current atmosphere, however, the consultant's stature, credibility, and integrity become instantly impugned and tarnished by
the depravity of associating with the tobacco "bad
guy-' .
Another interesting principle is that no one seems
troubled when a "good guy" does things that are
feared as the behavior of a "bad guy ." For example,
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) regularly
conducts "consensus conferences" in which the main
goal is a press release and published document intended to impress Congress into larger allocation of
research funds . The assembled participants for these
conferences are usually investigators beholden to the
NIH for grants (or hopeful of getting them) . No one
complains that the methods exemplify poor science ;
the goals and morals are serene, laudable, worthy .
No one seems troubled when a federal agency exercises tight censorship over the work of its grantees,
as in later years of the Framingham epidemiologic
study. Yet large outcries of immorality arise when
an investigator doing pure research in basic human
biology accepts funds from the Tobacco Industry,
given with no strings, no censorship, and complete
scientific liberty to pursue the work wherever it leads .
In such an atmosphere, "bad guys" who believe
they are getting a "bum rap" will defend themselves
as best they can . There thus appears, in this issue
of this journal, a review of passive smoking written
by four people (3) who have the worst possible background for scientific acceptability . They are not even
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"hired-gun" outside consultants ; they are actually
directly employed by the tobacco industry .
Many readers will adamantly refuse even to examine a report from such sources . The few who
actually begin reading will probably do so with
clenched teeth and flrm preconceptions . Nevertheless, if science depends on evidence and reasoning,
rather than on the sponsoring source, the report is
a fascinating document. Expecting a partisan polemic, I found it surprisingly even-handed, well constructed, and well written . It is certainly much better
in all these respects than analogous documents prepared by the allegedly disinterested and dispassionate evaluators at governmental agencies . In fact, if
the report by Smith et al (3) were published anonymously, with no identification of the authors or
their employer, it might well be lauded as an excellent or even model review of the topic .
Instead, however, what the authors have prepared
will probably be instantly dismissed because it comes
from the "bad guys," and because they failed to do
the self immolation that would have gained approval in the scientific policies of the current status
quo. Beyond the authors' sin of engaging in rational
self-defense, the editor of this journal will probably
be pilloried for publishing the report, and I expect
my own share of slings and arrows for failing to
castigate it and for even hinting that it may be a
worthwhile scientific document .
If public health and epidemiology want to avoid
becoming a branch of politics rather than science,
the key issues are methods and process (1) not the
"goodness" of the goals or investigators . In science
even more than law, the "bad guy" (often appearing
as a counter-hypothesis, paradigm shift, or skeptical
evaluation) should always have the right to state his
case, and a well-stated case has the right to be heard,
regardless of who pays for it .
Besides, the "bad guys" sometimes turn out to be
correct . Galileo was assailed by the Church when
he doubted Earth's centrality in the solar system ;
Semmelweis was denounced by obstetricians when
he said their inadequately cleansed hands were
transmitting disease ; Florence Nightingale was detested by the British establishment when she campaigned for better sanitation of water and sewage ;
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and Joseph Goldberger was deemed a fanatical nuisance when he questioned an esteemed 'cpidemiologic commission's report that pellagra was an infectious disease .
Just as "bad guys" are sometimes right, the "good
guys" are sometim es wrong. The history of medicine
and public health is replete with the errors (sometimes harmful blunders) committed by revered, respectable leaders in the field . The most recent memorable public events were the unnecessary, fallacious
hysteria about the hazards of Agent Orange, and the
needless evacuation of homes (and harm to lives)
by residents of an entire town in Missouri, responding to the mistaken zeal of a governmental agency .
The "bad guys ; " of course, are not always right,
but if they are denied a fair and proper scientific
hearing, neither society nor science will benefit. Society is entitled to make political decisions based on
advocacy . The scientific basis for those decisions,
however, should depend not on political advocacy,
but on scholarship-no matter how it is produced
or by whom .
ReFEttEl+cFs
1 . Feinstein AR (1988). Scientific standards in epidemiologic studies of the menace of daily life . Science
242:1257-1263.
2. Fleiss JL and Gross AJ (1991) . Meta-analysis in epidemiology, with special reference to studies of the association between exposure to environmental tobacco
smoke and lung ancer. A critique . J. Clirt . Epidemiol.
44 : 127-139 .
3 . SmithCJ,SearsSB,WalkerJC,andDeLuaPO(1992) .
Environmental tobacco smoke : Current assessment and
future directions . Toxicol. Pathol. 20(2) : 289-303 .
4 . Spitzer WO, Dales R, Schecter MT, Tousignant P, and
Hutcheon M (1987) . Subjective fears and objective
data: An epidemiologic study of environmental health
concerns. Trans. Assoc. Am . Physicians 100: 40-44 .
5 . Surgeon General's Report (1964) . The Health Consequences of Smoking .
Discussant: ALv.w R . Farurpr+
Sterling Professor ojMedicine
and Epidemiology
Yale University School of Medicine